Devastating Tragedies Caught On Live TV
A large-scale earthquake, a devastating space shuttle explosion, and the most deadly terrorist attacks in American history. Shockingly, these unthinkable tragedies and more were all captured on camera.
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00:00A large-scale earthquake, a devastating space shuttle explosion, and the most deadly terrorist
00:05attacks in American history. Shockingly, these unthinkable tragedies and more were all captured
00:10on camera.
00:11Ranking high among the wildest fan fights of sports history, the Dinamo Red Star Riot
00:16occurred as Yugoslavia disintegrated amid ethnic rivalries in the late 1980s. Towards
00:21the end of the 1989-90 Yugoslav soccer season, one of the biggest and most violent soccer
00:25rivalries in the world met at the Croatian capital's Maksimir Stadium, where Serbian-side
00:29Red Star Belgrade faced off against Dinamo Zagreb. That year, Croatian pro-independence
00:34parties had won a massive electoral victory, and police expected trouble between the hardcore
00:38nationalist fans. Croatian fan and eyewitness Ivo Persia told a Transworld sport documentary
00:43team the riot began when Red Star fans attacked the Dinamo family section.
00:48So our supporters, the bad blue boys, decided to break through the fences to try and put
00:53a stop to it.
00:55The counterattack ignited a full-scale riot. Police responded with tear gas and batons.
01:00The Croatian fans accused the police of favoring the Serbs, and also attacked them. Dinamo
01:04players Ivanomir Boban then kicked a police officer in the face for beating a Dinamo fan.
01:09By the end, over 60 were wounded.
01:12Croatian journalist Drazen Kruse told Transworld Sport the riot was likely pre-planned by the
01:16authorities in Belgrade. He noted that notorious Serbian paramilitary and politician Zeko Arkin
01:22Raznotovic, who would later commit war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia, was present there as
01:26the head of the Red Star fans. Regardless, May 13, 1990 lives in Croatian lore as the
01:31beginning of the Croatian War of Independence.
01:34The Arab Spring, a series of revolutions against authoritarian governments in the Middle East,
01:38saw former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak deposed and replaced with Mohamed Morsi in
01:43the Muslim Brotherhood. The latter's tenure ignited a steep increase in terror attacks
01:47against the country's sizable Coptic Christian minority. After Morsi's 2013 ouster, attacks
01:52intensified. In 2017, the world witnessed twin bombings in the northern cities of Tanta
01:57and Alexandria on Palm Sunday, one week before Easter. The Tanta bombing at St. George's
02:02Coptic Church was caught on YouTube Livestream. As a camera is fixed on the choir, the bomb
02:07goes off and the feed cuts, leaving only the sound of screaming. The attack killed 28 and
02:12wounded 77. Egyptian security forces concluded that a suicide bomber had managed to get through
02:17security because a metal detector was not working. The attack was linked to militias
02:20of the terror group ISIS, which claimed credit for the bombing as an attack against Christian
02:24crusaders and apostates.
02:27On January 28, 1986, Americans were glued to their televisions to watch the launch of
02:32the space shuttle Challenger. The launch was supposed to kick off a busy year for NASA
02:35in preparation for the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. The Challenger would deploy
02:39satellites while also carrying a teacher named Krista McAuliffe, who would teach her classes
02:43from space. The Challenger appeared to be adhering to the timeline when it launched
02:47successfully, but around one minute into the flight, it exploded in midair, killing the
02:51entire crew.
02:52We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded.
02:57After delivering a eulogy in honor of the crew, President Ronald Reagan ordered an investigation
03:01into the explosion, whose findings were summarized in the Rogers Commission Report. The commission
03:06stated,
03:07The loss of the space shuttle Challenger was caused by a failure in the joint between the
03:10two lower segments on the right solid rocket motor. The specific failure was the destruction
03:15of the seals that are intended to prevent hot gases from leaking.
03:18This is truly a national loss.
03:21In other words, a technical failure that was likely preventable, but was not caught due
03:25to NASA's command structure.
03:27According to the Rogers report, the maker of the seals of the shuttle's launcher had
03:30warned NASA that they could potentially fail in colder weather. Morton Thiokol, the company
03:34in question, issued the warnings as early as 1985. However, it seems that NASA decided
03:39to go through with the launch anyway, despite colder temperatures being predicted for Cape
03:43Canaveral on the launch date, which was an early winter.
03:47The finish line of a marathon, especially a world-class one like Boston, is supposed
03:51to be a place of joy where runners celebrate their achievement. In 2012, however, it became
03:55the scene of carnage when someone detonated two bombs near the finish line. Three people
04:00were killed and another 260 injured. President Barack Obama declared a manhunt as Federal
04:05forces were marshaled to find the perpetrators.
04:08Eventually, security footage led to a young Chechen student named Zohar Tsarnaev and his
04:12older brother Tamerlan. The two brothers responded by killing an MIT security guard. Despite
04:17having enough weapons to carry out another massacre, they did not, for whatever reason,
04:21opting instead to try and flee so they could conduct a similar attack in New York City's
04:25Times Square.
04:26Before they could arrive, Tamerlan was killed in a firefight, while the wounded Zohar managed
04:30to hide out in a boat before Federal agents arrested him. In a subsequent interrogation,
04:35Zohar reportedly told Federal agents the attacks were vengeance for the U.S. occupations of
04:39various Muslim countries. Zohar was convicted for the bombing and sentenced to death by
04:44lethal injection, which the Supreme Court upheld. But in 2024, Tsarnaev's lawyers alleged
04:49that holding the trial in Boston and seating two jurors who allegedly lied on the questionnaire
04:53made it impossible for their client to get justice. The case is pending review as of
04:57mid-2024.
04:58The 1989 World Series was known as the Battle of the Bay and featured the San Francisco
05:05Giants facing off against the Oakland A's. Oakland won the first two games, so San Francisco
05:10needed to win Game 3 to have a chance at forcing a tiebreaker in a fifth game. During ABC's
05:14pre-game coverage of the third game, however, the screen suddenly cut out.
05:19Despite the ABC announcer's optimism that coverage would return, the situation was far
05:23more serious than they made it seem. San Francisco had been hit by a 6.9-magnitude earthquake.
05:29The tremor cut power to the stadium and forced the game to be postponed 10 days. Nor was
05:33the city left untouched. For a 15-second earthquake, the 1989 Loma Prieta tremor did way more than
05:39just interrupt the World Series. According to statistics from the California Department
05:43of Conservation, the earthquake caused around $10 billion in damage and economic interruption.
05:48Nearly 18,000 homes were damaged and nearly 1,000 destroyed, as were thousands of small
05:52businesses. Part of Interstate 880 collapsed, leaving the highway unusable, while the Bay
05:57Bridge connecting Oakland with San Francisco was also closed. Sixty-seven were killed and
06:023,700 injured. As for the World Series, play resumed 10 days later, as Oakland swept the
06:07series with a four-game triumph.
06:10Counting among the worst instances of mass civil violence in U.S. history, the 1992 Los
06:15Angeles riots began in response to the acquittal of four police officers who were accused of
06:19beating a Black man named Rodney King due to his skin color. Los Angeles was engulfed
06:23in looting and violence that saw 50 killed, around 2,300 injured, and a staggering $1
06:28billion in property damage.
06:30It's not right! It's not right what y'all doing!
06:35In the period leading up to the riots, South Los Angeles was a tinderbox of racially charged
06:40resentment, directed in no small part against the LAPD, who were seen by the majority Black
06:44residents as more of an occupying force than peacekeepers. In Koreatown, the recent shooting
06:49of a 15-year-old girl by a store owner had exacerbated tensions between Korean and Black
06:53residents, banning the flames that eventually rose. Black street gangs targeted white and
06:58Hispanic residents, stores were looted, and general mayhem reigned.
07:01As video cameras captured the Los Angeles skyline ablaze, reporters noted that there
07:05was little that could be done to contain the problem. The L.A. police, who were already
07:09short-staffed before the riots, were simply spread too thin to effectively control the
07:13chaos. The governor of California, Pete Wilson, ultimately was forced to call in the state
07:17National Guard, which managed to contain the worst of the rioting. The Guard's presence,
07:22combined with Rodney King's appeal for calm and for Angelenos to try and get along, helped
07:26the rioting eventually subside.
07:289-11 was pretty much the seminal event and tragedy of 21st century America. On that day,
07:33two planes flew into the World Trade Center towers in downtown New York City, the first
07:37of which was captured in a chilling video filmed just blocks away from the towers. In
07:42addition, one aircraft hit the Pentagon, and another crashed into a Pennsylvania field,
07:46seemingly on its way to another target in Washington, D.C. Altogether, 2,997 people
07:52were killed.
07:53Our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.
07:59After the United States identified al-Qaeda terror group leader Osama bin Laden as the
08:03mastermind behind the attacks, President George W. Bush declared the infamous Global War on
08:08Terror. To accomplish this, Congress and the Bush administration ratified the 2001 Authorization
08:13for Use of Military Force. Whose language was so vague, it gave the White House a virtual
08:17blank check to involve the United States and virtually any country on the excuse of fighting
08:22terrorism. This led to the Afghan war and bombing campaigns against at least six other
08:26countries.
08:27Notre-Dame de Paris, medieval Christendom's most famous cathedral, is a proud symbol of
08:32France that took centuries to build. Yet it was all wiped out in one day in a tragic fire
08:36that hit the cathedral in the spring of 2019. Live footage captured the tragic yet iconic
08:42moment in which the spire collapsed in a blaze, leaving onlookers stunned.
08:46Investigators concluded that the most likely cause of the fire was an electrical short
08:50circuit, as the cathedral had been undergoing maintenance and renovations. Although numerous
08:54irreplaceable works of art were destroyed, not everything was a tragedy. A French firefighter
08:58saved one of the cathedral's most prized possessions, a relic believed to be a piece of the crown
09:03of thorns Jesus wore during his crucifixion.
09:05The tragedy united people worldwide to rebuild the cathedral, with France collecting around
09:11from individual and corporate donors for its restoration. However, there was the question
09:15as to how exactly the cathedral should be rebuilt. Initially, there were all sorts of
09:19plans, from rebuilding it as it was to partially converting it into a giant greenhouse. In
09:23the end, the French government, which owns the cathedral and gets the final say, has
09:27opted to rebuild it exactly as it was.
09:30In June 2019, the inhabitants of West London woke up to a horrifying sight at 1 a.m. The
09:3623-story Grenfell Apartment Council complex had caught fire. Grenfell inhabitant Behelou
09:41Khabid called the London Fire Brigade, which found smoke and fire at Khabid's window near
09:45a fridge freezer, perhaps as a result of what the brigade called unknown materials. The
09:50blaze quickly spread around the window, eventually engulfing the whole building. What was particularly
09:54scary about the fire was that although it began on the fourth floor, it was not contained,
09:58and residents on the upper floors soon found themselves facing flames moving up the building.
10:03Wherein lay the cause of most of the casualties? Grenfell's policy required residents in a
10:07fire to stay put in their homes because the building was designed to ensure fires were
10:10contained in a single apartment. That did not happen, meaning that many people who obeyed
10:15the stay-put order were burned alive. All those who survived were the ones who defied
10:19it. Altogether, 72 people were killed. The local council demanded an investigation into
10:24why the fire had spread so easily, despite the alleged safety features of the building.
10:28They found that the council itself had cut corners on fire safety design and silenced
10:32anyone who objected.